A central question in financial accounting is whether managers manipulate reported
earnings. The business community generally concedes that earnings manipulation
in financial reporting is pervasive. For example. Fortune (1989, 193) quotes the
editor of the Quality o/Earnings Report, a respected newsletter, as saying, "Scrupulous
honesty in financial reporting is at an all-time low. To most companies today,
managing earnings is almost irresistible." In the academic literature, however, the evidence
of earnings manipulation is suggestive but not conclusive